Remember when they fixed formations?

[Marajah]

Remember when they fixed formations last year? When they finally made unshielded units stay behind shielded units in shield walls? When they made transitions between formations smooth and dynamic?

Happened in the patch after this announcement and it was a huge step in making shock troops useful and archers less dominant (at least infantry could get to them). After the patch, shield wall formations moved in the same speed as single units running with their shields up.

Someone decided that speed wasn't ok and they ninja reduced the speed of any formation with shields up to a ridiculous slug a few patches later, unless they are charging. Ok, that can be a dev choice. It makes sense units with locked shields move slowly (although it's slower than a lame tortoise). The problem is they applied that speed reduction bluntly, which completely broke the transitions between formations. Ordering a shield wall will make every unit go to their new positions at the same pace they advance, while turning their unprotected flanks to missile fire, and unshielded units get stuck in front of shielded units while trying to get to the back (as in the picture)

It's broken.

What baffles me the most is some people in the dev team went through all that trouble to make formations cool, only for them to throw all the work through the window. Why not revert it?

 

[Mad Vader]

Basically you want reforming (out of position) troops to move at normal (or faster) speed and are not too bothered if the formed troops move at Taleworlds development speed.
It's a cheap burn, but it's something.

 

[AndrewArt]

it seems to be a trend at TW to change things to an extreme... the movement isn't halved, it's way slower in formation. Just like throwing weapons were nerfed to the ground because some people were complaining, and they gave less throwing weapons and way less damage to the point most throwing weapons are useless in multiplayer. Also arena exp gain for combat skills is so low that there is no reason to play in the arena... I don't understand why we don't just halve things (Get 100% exp in combat, 50% or 75% in arena). I may be wrong, but it feels like it's 0.25% speed, I never measured it to say for sure. It's just a lot of fine details that really need improvement...

Happened in the patch after this announcement and it was a huge step in making shock troops useful and archers less dominant (at least infantry could get to them). After the patch, shield wall formations moved in the same speed as single units running with their shields up.

And yes, makes sense, and it's why archers dominate again... I remember when I played a couple of patches ago that I just made a full party of crossbowmen and it was way too easy to defeat the incoming turtle-speed shield wall, when many troops didn't even have shields, and AI has mostly melee infantry (since recruits are melee infantry as well. Maybe it would be a good idea to have 3 recruit types from the very beginning, one belong to melee infantry, one belongs to cavalry, and one to ranged, and they all have their respective equipment. Ranged recruit could have throwing stones and I would be very happy about it, sounds more fun... and this is also available for multiplayer, some people did suggest a similar thing and it would be way more fun again, so no one is forced to play as a melee recruit if they don't want to. This would result in more variety troops - more troops, and also a better structure for the troops in general. The cavalry recruit could have very bad spear and the lamest horse of all, with a speed that barely beats the current shield wall movement speed... for balance purposes. And if you combine this with higher cost and wage and food needed for cavalry etc, it still makes the game balanced and players won't just all go cavalry recruits all the time)

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

It's funny how Cavalry in SW also moves slower, I'll have them in SW and fallow me and they'll be 1/2 across the map behind me. They're not even in a SW , they just are keeping shield up.

 

[MostBlunted]

Basically you want reforming (out of position) troops to move at normal (or faster) speed and are not too bothered if the formed troops move at Taleworlds development speed.
It's a cheap burn, but it's something.

 

[Marajah]

Basically you want reforming (out of position) troops to move at normal (or faster) speed and are not too bothered if the formed troops move at Taleworlds development speed.

LOL. Jokes aside, if they moved faster I wouldn't bother at all.

And yes, makes sense, and it's why archers dominate again... I remember when I played a couple of patches ago that I just made a full party of crossbowmen and it was way too easy to defeat the incoming turtle-speed shield wall, when many troops didn't even have shields, and AI has mostly melee infantry

I made another thread about this when the slug wall hit, but people shifted the discussion into "archers are not that OP", now the game is at the same state it was on release, except they also made horse archers stupid.

Infantry is redundant and it's only purpose right now is to have a small group going up ahead to an open field, so the enemy converge on them and get pincushioned by missile troops.

 

[AndrewArt]

LOL. Jokes aside, if they moved faster I wouldn't bother at all.

I made another thread about this when the slug wall hit, but people shifted the discussion into "archers are not that OP", now the game is at the same state it was on release, except they also made horse archers stupid.

Infantry is redundant and it's only purpose right now is to have a small group going up ahead to an open field, so the enemy converge on them and get pincushioned by missile troops.

yeah I remember... I know I told people the same thing and they just wouldn't believe me, lol. I would only train crossbowmen and easily defeat parties twice my size. Ranged troops are very easy to train and maintain, you just fight looters with recruits until they are all upgradeable, then upgrade them all to crossbowmen at once, and all you have to do is keep fighting bad armies and none of your crossbowmen will die. It's also very efficient because you will then keep the crossbowmen at tier 1 until they are ALL upgradeable, so you pay very little wages until you can upgrade everyone at the same time. Ranged infantry are the easiest and fastest to train and keep alive until tier 5 as well, and overall most efficient troop, they get most kills and survive the most. Crossbowmen also have shields, and not the worst armor, so they're basically better than infantry in every way imaginable. This, paired with the bad AI, just makes the game easy-mode even on realistic. I'd say infantry really need some improvements to make the game even sort of a challenge at this point... I'm still waiting for some meaningful updates to play again. I just know what to expect from the game at this point. Either I choose to play infantry-based armies to have fun and get my ass wrecked by every army that has more troops than me (me myself being an infantry as well), or I just abuse the hell out of ranged troops and gg... the first is more fun because it's at least a challenge, but it gets really frustrating after you lose and you start wondering why the hell are you handicapping yourself like that.

 

[Julio-Claudian]

This really is annoying.

If you move a group forwards across the battlefield then place them in shield wall, square or whatever formation and reinforcements for that group spawn in your army's starting position, the newly spawned troops will move as though they are already in the shield wall and take forever to reach the rest of the group.